How can I improve my left hand plucking?

[tongxuemenhao]

I play the zhongruan, liuqin, and yueqin. The first instrument I got was the yueqin last April. I was completely self taught until about a year later, when I had my first lesson with pipa player Gao Hong. She lives hour away, so the lessons are very infrequent. I got assigned ¡°»¶ÀÖµÄÈÕ×Ó¡± last time for zhongruan, and left hand plucking is used often in the song. The problem is, my left hand plucking is never nearly as loud as I would like it to be. I was wondering if there was a way to increase tthe volume. Thanks for reading.

[xindi]

Wow. If you have the pleasure of being taught by Gao Hong (get her new CD!!! It's incredible!) then you shouldn't need to ask us lowly beasts for advice.

Your Hanzi script doesn't show up for me. I presume you are right handed and need to the left hand advanced techniques for plucking. I'm self-striving to teach myself (I'm a bad bad bad! student!). From what I've pieced together, you can increase the volume several ways:

1. You can use you middle index finger to pluck, rather than the weaker muscled ring finger or little finger.
2. You can develop the strength of your weaker fingers.
3. You can use the flesh of the little finger, rather than the actual tip of the fingernail to pluck.
4. You can strike the pluck string pulling it further
5. You can strike the pluck string faster.
6. You could reduce the volume of your right hand plucking to match.
7. You could ask Gao Hong and tell the rest of us how the professionals do it!

Thanks for reading

[edcat7]

Dr Cheng yu, the pipa player, as I understand it, can play the liuqin and zhongruan but she uses her fingers rather than a pick.

The use of the pick is alot harder than it looks. My liuqin teacher is an absolute brick for timing and every note I play has to be in time with a metronome.

Although the liuqin and zhongruan has the same number of strings, frets and tuning, they are different instruments and although they share a similar basic tuition my guess is one often specialises. I've been told by an experienced zhongruan player that she could only teach me the liuqin to a certain level.

I'd be interested in the score of the above tune.

Best wishes

Ed

[tongxuemenhao]

xindi
Thanks for the tips, I'll work on it. Oh, and the song is Huan(1)le(4) de Ri(4)zi which is "Happy Holidays" or something. My next lessom with Gao Hong is in the end of August, so I wanted to try and improve it before then. I meant to say she lives hours away so it's difficult to get lessons. Also, she's in China until about then.

edcat7
Yeah, Gao Hong usually uses fingers when she plays zhongruan (she learned yueqin, liuqin, and zhongruan before pipa) and says eventually she would like me to learn them too. Good thing my teacher isn't so on to me about timing, I usually like to speed and slow things based in the feeling and emphasis that sometimes isn't written in the scores. Here's a link to the score: www.ktvc8.com/article/article_202946_1.html

[edcat7]

Thanks. The score looks pretty straight forward. Do you have a link to what it sounds like?

[tongxuemenhao]

Sorry, but I don't. I looked on youku, youtube, and google, but couldn't find one on zhongruan.

[xindi]

Hey Tong Xue -

have you got any of the instructional DVD videos? The easiest one to follow (if your Mandarin is as terrible as mine) are the CNN ones by Zhao Cong online if you don't. She goes through all the major techniques (about 40 I think). I have only covered a fraction of hers, as I don't understand what she says, and have to repeat and replay, trying to zoom into her fingering.

Generally for left hand plucking (for a right handed player), I find the ring or little finger most useful, if you are depressing the string fret with the index finger: that will give you the maximum distance away from the fretted note, to generate a greater moment of force when you pull the string.

The problem as I've discovered playing guzheng, is that my finger strength (particularly left) hand is very undeveloped. In guzheng, the left pinkie finger is very useful for the bass (drum) string note: I've sprained it once plucking too vigorously, but a year later, it is strong enough to pluck on pipa and make a credible note.

Developing the finger strength requires practice exercises - I decided to stick with the pinky finger for left hand plucking after all the variations - persevere firmly building up exercise time on it!

Yes - I tend to play 'free rhythm' all the time too. I have no interest in technical perfection.

[tongxuemenhao]

My Mandarin is also not very good also. Luckily though, I'm taking Chinese lessons regularly, so it's improving. Where can I find the videos? That would be very helpful.

[edcat7]

Have you done sharps# yet on the liuqin? The first string on the liuqin is like cheese wire and until I have developed callouses have band-aid my fingers.

[xindi]

Was the video any help?

I couldn't find the other ones I had bookmarked...it will take me a century to trawl through all the hanzi characters to work out which link it was.

Just realised, that you might have been striking the string, using a guitar or traditional western plucking method, trying to pluck towards your palm.

The pipa technique of the left hand plucking strikes the string away from the palm - it's hard to work this out on the video, but it's the same technique for both right (dominant) hand and left advanced techniques.